25 Weeks

As I attempted to sleep last night, I realized that most women would reach 25 weeks and think "15 weeks left, give or take a little."

Not me! "I can do another 8 weeks. Come on, body, you can do this!"

And so far, my body and the baby are cooperating, so I'm going to keep thinking positive as best as I can.

Every 3 to 4 nights I have a night where my anxiety really does get to me and before I went to bed last night, I could sense the pending storm. Dash was quiet during the night, but not so quiet as to cause some of the full panic attacks I've had in the past that leave me hurrying downstairs to my rocking chair and doppler for a heartbeat check. I was able to lay in bed and practice my Hypnobabies breathing and an anesthesia technique that allowed me to sleep for what amounted to several 90 minutes stretches.

So it wasn't a great night's sleep by any means, but I made it through with what felt like only a few loose shutters, rather than having my mental home washed out to sea.

My husband and I were both very busy the last two days and I feel like I've barely seen him. I don't like those days very much, especially when they're back-to-back. Tonight we'll have more time together and I'm looking forward to it, even if it will be a busy evening. We meet with our chiropractor again (hallelujah!) and then will be doing dinner at Costco along with gassing up the van and getting a few supplies for an upcoming road trip.

Our daughters are excited about this trip. The youngest keeps trying to compare it to our quick trip to North Carolina back in May, but telling her the drive is twice as long doesn't seem to be settling in for her, and our trip to Palmyra, NY back in July must have felt much shorter to her, since that trip never gets mentioned. Perhaps by the 400th mile she realize that a long trip really does mean long??

Who am I kidding, she'll be asking "Are we there yet?" before our second get-out-and-stretch break.

And in another 8 weeks, friends and family can start asking me something similar: Is Dash here yet??

But until then, the Bump grows so my shirts are getting shorter, the hips are starting to ache at night, and her knees, elbows, and feet are starting to poke in distinct places. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Anxiety Attack

The last few days my emotions have gone from mildly controllable to out of control. The panic, anxiety, and fear became more than I could handle.  Add to that a very quiet and calm Dash and it led to almost no sleep Wednesday night.

Thursday morning I woke, having not felt her kick most of the night and decided to eat Lucky Charms to get her moving.

It didn't work.

I could still hear her heartbeat on my doppler, but there was a new howling sound that I hadn't heard before and it was nowhere near the placenta, which can sometimes make a variety of noises based on what I've read. Hearing the heartbeat was only mildly reassuring because the heartbeat is the last thing to go when a problem arises. It can confirm that the baby is alive, but nothing more than that.

In panicked tears I called and spoke to my nurse at Dr. H's office and she said they wanted me to come in as quickly as possible for an NST.

This type of crippling anxiety isn't one I experience often, but this wasn't the first time it's happened.

It took a few minutes to get my 4 year old ready to go out the door and set up arrangements for the two daycare children I was to watch that day: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. On the way there I realized I didn't have my EZPass, which allows me to quickly drive through the toll booths for the toll roads that are essentially required to get there.

I turned around, hoping to find my EZPass on the stairs but it was nowhere to be found. This wasn't helping my panic at all!

I eventually made it to Rockville, where my friend, R, who referred me to the practice in the first place met me. I was so grateful for her offer to come and help me with my daughter and having someone there to talk to, even about more mundane things, made the waiting easier.

Because I'm only 20 weeks, the NST wasn't working well and a solid and steady heart rate couldn't be monitored. I sat in that room in a reclining and comfy chair for roughly 45 minutes, talking to R and finally feeling Dash "wake up".

The doctor decided to squeeze me in for an ultrasound, given not only my panicked state but also the cord compression issue I'd experienced less than a week before. Once in the ultrasound room, my daughter had a chance for a few minutes to watch her sister on the monitor and measurements began. Her interest didn't last long, but since then she keeps asking how big Dash is compared to various objects she holds in her hands (a bunch of grapes, a doll, a hairbrush, her shoe, etc).

Because the anatomy scan two weeks prior hadn't been finished, the tech took the time to get the remained of the images they needed to make off the file as completed. In addition, she checked the flow of blood in the umbilical cord.

Everything measured perfectly.  

Dash looked so big in the scan. She's definitely bigger than Jackson ever was but every bit as stubborn as he tended to be when it came to being in the right position for the images.

My 4 year old was like that, too!

When Dr. H came in to review everything, we talked about my anxiety and she recommended I get a supplement from Whole Foods called CALM. It's a magnesium supplement that she wants me to take right before bed. I bought a version that also contains calcium, knowing that I have low calcium intake and that Lovenox has a tendency to deplete calcium stores. When asked when my next appointment was, I responded, "A week from tomorrow."

"Perfect. Keep it. You'll feel better if you come in and that's what we need right now."

Thank You, Thank You!!

After getting my van back and eventually making it to Whole Foods, the chiropractor, dinner, and having my visiting teachers come over, it was bedtime. So I mixed that Raspberry-Lemonade flavored CALM into some water and drank it. It's not very tasty, but it's better than other supplements I've had to take!

I slugged my way upstairs, brushed my teeth, rolled onto my side with my extra pillow between my knees and went to sleep around 9:45PM with Dash wiggling around.

And I didn't move.

At 3:37AM, I woke up to go to the bathroom and realized just how deep my sleep had been. I felt wonderful! I returned to bed and slept soundly until 5:45, when I woke and realized I was well rested and could get in the shower before my alarm went off.

Although it could have been sheer exhaustion, I'm fairly certain it was a combination of the CALM, the ultrasound, and Dr. H saying, "Failure is not an option" that helped me out. 

I am now two gestational days away from where Jackson passed away. I will hit that angleversary on the same day that we lost our little girl two years ago, September 28th. If Dash is extra active, it will make the day less painful, but if she sticks true to character, she'll pick Sunday as her day of rest and it will be a not-so-calm one for me emotionally.

In the meantime, I can sit here in my rocking chair and feel her wiggling around and kicking not far from my bellybutton and thank my Father in Heaven for a doctor who understands my fears and for the life that continues to grow within me.

Four Days to Remember

In four days, my big ball of nerves will get to move in one of two directions:

I can keep being a big ball of nerves, but know that my baby has a heartbeat, and thus, a chance at survival.

Or . . .

I will be stopping all meds and hoping that my body miscarries on its own and another d&c isn't required.

My degree is in mathematics education.  I tutor statistics, study outcomes, and have a general sense for numbers.

In the last 9 years I have had over 70 ultrasounds related to fertility and pregnancy.  Of those, only 4 have shown negative things.

The first was in August 2008, when it showed my 8 week pregnancy was a blighted ovum, measuring 7 weeks.  Clear pregnancy sac and a strand of tissue, but no baby.  The week before I'd passed some mucus speckled with what appear to be a blood clot.  I didn't know at the time that that blood clot was actually my miscarried baby.

The next difficult one wasn't until September 2012, when my daughter's heart stopped for what seemed like no reason at all.

The next two were those surrounding the loss of our son, with one being the slowed growth and the other confirmation of his death.

Statistically speaking, this ultrasound should go well.  4 bad out of over 70 . . . that's over 92% "successful" ultrasounds.

So why am I so nervous?

Because my pregnancies have a 72% failure rate.  That's why.

My emotions have been all over the place.  In some moments I feel the peace of God, knowing that He knows the outcome and can guide me no matter what that outcome is.  At other moments I feel my past weighing on my mind, knowing how small of a chance I really have that this pregnancy will work out.

And I don't know if there is a heartbeat yet.  I could have gone in as early as tomorrow.  I'll be 6 weeks along . . . but sometimes that's just a day or two too soon, so I decided to wait until Monday, where that extra few days should make all the difference.

Our unnamed daughter had a heartbeat at 5w+6d, but I know each baby can be just a little different as far as cardiac activity goes.  She was my earliest ultrasound and the doctor agreed to have it done so early because of my history of loss.

In the next 4 days, I am going to try very hard to Remember.

". . . then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me."1

 I'm going to remember that feeling of peace I had when I was pregnant with Jackson.

I'm going to remember that feeling that everything would be okay, even as he passed away.

I'm going to remember the outpouring of love and support from family members and a tremendous number of friends, both near and far.

I'm going to remember that I have Two Miracles.

I'm going to remember that my past does not dictate my future.

I'm going to remember that I have my best friend by my side and my loss is his loss, and my success is our success.

I'm going to remember that this life is just a small moment in the eternities and just because I can't have a large family now doesn't mean that I won't have one when the Heavens are ours to build and grow.

And I'm going to remember that I am a Daughter of Heavenly Parents who weep with me when I weep, who rejoice when I rejoice, and who I can feel when I find that quiet place in my heart and in my mind to just feel.

Four days to Remember.

Anxiety

For a solid two years of my life, I suffered from occasional anxiety attacks.  It would start as a tightening in my chest that hurt, like a clamp that stung, and then the inability to breathe correctly would begin. The attacks weren't filled with any sort of fight or flight panic, but they'd last about 10 minutes and I'd just sit there, focus on breathing, and try to make sure my heart was still beating.

The first attack happened when I was on my way to SFO to fly home.  My father was driving and my one year old daughter was asleep in the backseat.  It was about 5:00am.

Looking back I realize that my anxiety was over never seeing my mother again.  I'd spent 6 weeks in California on a trip that was supposed to be a lot of fun, shopping with Mom, swimming, and giving my husband the time he needed to study for the Virginia Bar Exam.  Instead, Mom had spent the entire summer in the hospital, very ill and with no end in sight. As I prepared to fly home, I was rather convinced that I might never see my mother again.

When I began spotting with a miscarriage in September 2011, my anxiety attacks were almost on top of each other.  On one day, the attack lasted a full 4 hours and I was within moments of calling all the daycare parents to let them know I needed them to get their children now so I could go to the ER.  The attack was long enough for me to finally call a doctor for some testing.

She and I discussed what was going on, how it felt, and then she ran an EKG that showed my heart was perfectly normal.

After that, if I felt the tell-tale signs of the start of an anxiety attack, I could just breathe my way through it and they slowly became further between.

Wednesday night, as I completed preparations and paperwork for my appointment with Dr. Hamersley, I was blindsided by an anxiety attack.  It was my first in almost two years.  Even when we lost our little girl and with all we went through with Jackson, I never once had an anxiety attack. I came close when I got the call that his cremains were ready, but it never went beyond needing to focus on breathing.  My chest didn't get the vice/clamp feeling.

But Wednesday it did.  And it was unnerving.

The anxiety seems to be back.  I had to sit and breathe again after taking an hpt yesterday.  I hadn't even seen the results and I couldn't stand up straight, couldn't breathe.

Today marks 9dpo.  It was also the 3rd injection of my new dose of Lovenox.  I'm continuing to have some uterine cramping and the occasional sharp pains in both my ovaries.  Those sharp pains may be small cysts--I get those sometimes with the corpus luteum.  But the uterine cramping is very reminiscent of the cramping I had that led me to testing when I found out I was expecting Jackson.

With all my other pregnancies and all of my non-pregnant cycles, I never had that kind of cramping. My temps weren't impressive in November, but the cramping was new, so I tested.

I tested yesterday in the afternoon.  Definitely bfn.  Tested again this afternoon.  Bfn at the 5 minute mark, but before the test was dry, something started to show up.  I obviously can't call it bfp, but I will be testing again in the morning.

Here is the picture I took of the tests from yesterday and today.

The line may very well be an evap (evaporation line), but you can see that I didn't get an evap on yesterday's test.  In fact, I haven't had evaps on any tests from this batch of Wondfos, which I ordered back in September.

Someone told me to go get a FRER--First Response Early Result, however 1) I don't shop on Sundays and 2) they're expensive.  So I will simply test again tomorrow and see what happens.

I was 9dpo when I found out I was expecting Jackson, based on temps. I'm 9dpo now and 62 days postpartum.

So the dilemma I have been arguing with myself has been whether or not we'd share a bfp right away or wait like we did this last time.  Clearly, I've decided to share any-and-all test results simply because I'm trying to keep it real.

REAL.  That's how I live my life, it's how I share my life.  And because there are emotions I'm experiencing that could help someone else, someone who has been here, too.  Or someone who may be in my shoes in coming months.

So am I pregnant? Don't know!  But I guess I'll find out in a day or two.